Learn to Code by Watching Others Write It

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Learn to Code by Watching Others Write It

Five years ago the hotness in web development was showing what you could create without resorting to Flash. Now it seems the same is true of JavaScript. While we've nothing against JavaScript, the increasingly powerful tools in CSS 3 mean that JavaScript is no longer a necessity for building cool stuff on the web.

The latest JavaScript-free demo we've run across is this very cool stopwatch demo made using only CSS 3, no images or JavaScript necessary. Now before you dive into the code and get all Karl Van Hœt on us, yes, there is a script used to handle CSS prefixing, but the actual stopwatch doesn't require it to work.

But what caught our eye even more than the JavaScript-free stopwatch demo is the tutorial that accompanies it. The tutorial – which is one part screencast and one part code dump – is part of Code Player, which helps you learn how to do things by showing you the code as it's written. It's an interesting tutorial method, one we haven't seen before.

Watching code being written isn't for everyone, especially beginners who might not be able to easily follow what's happening, but it's well suited to those that already understand the basics and just want to see how some particular function was written. It also provides an interesting look at how other developers work, which in turn might teach you a new trick or two.

The Code Player offers a variety of playback speeds depending on how fast you want to run through the tutorial, and there's a timeline scrubber for pausing and rewinding any bits you miss. Our only complaint is that Code Player forces focus in the browser; when you try to click another tab or do something in the background Code Player steals focus back immediately.

If learning something new by watching someone else type sounds intriguing, head on over to the Code Player site. And don't worry if the stopwatch demo has no appeal for you, there are plenty of other tutorials to choose from.